Thinkific Pricing Plans: Honest Review And Breakdown

So, what is the best Thinkific pricing plan to go with?  Should you even go with Thinkific, or should you opt for another online course creation platform?

Whether you’re an online course creator, teacher, or coach, Thinkific offers plans ideal for nearly everyone.

Before we get into the review, let’s immediately break down the pricing options (since that’s the main reason you’re reading this 😉), and then we’ll cover the features and benefits.

• Free Plan – obviously, this one is free 99
• Basic Plan – This plan starts at $49/month (36/month if billed annually)
• Start Plan – $99/month ($74/month if you pay for the year in total)
• Grow Plan – $199/month ($149/month for the annual plan)

Regardless of which payment plan you decide on, by the end of this, you’ll be able to make an educated decision on which plan, if any, will work best for your online course business. 

Thinkific Pricing: How Much Does It Actually Cost?

It depends on a few factors. Whether you choose the free plan or one of their paid plans will ultimately determine how much you pay each month/year, whether you pay per month or in full. Of course, you will ALWAYS save money by shooting for the annual plan. 

Pricing Plan Per Tier

Yes, there are several options. Factoring whether you’re on a shoestring budget or are growing your enterprise course curriculum will ultimately determine which route is best for your online course. 

Free Plan

Yes, you read this right; they do offer a “free plan.” Like all online course platforms that are free, they do, however, come with their limitations. Explicitly referring to the Thinkific free plan, you are limited to:

• 1 course
• 1 administrator
• email and chatbot support for only 30 days
• No access to the Thinkific’s Accelerator Program

Nevertheless, it’s still a pretty good deal, considering it’s an entirely free plan. 

It’s totally free and allows you access to the platform so you can grow. Once you start growing your brand, you have the option to invest in a higher-tier plan. This plan is for those who need to market but are on a shoestring budget. 

Basic Plan 

The basic plan starts at $49/month if billed monthly and drops to $36/month if you pay for the year upfront. Additionally, the Thinkific basic plan allows you access to:

• Branded mobile app
• Live chat support via message and email
• 5 Spaces per community (upgraded from 2 on the free plan)
• Custom domain
• Discounts and coupons
• Offers affiliate selling option

Start Plan (Pro Plan)

Also referred to as the “start” plan, pricing ranges from $99/month billed monthly. If you choose to be billed annually, you’ll pay $74/month. This way, you save $300 for the year. 

Some additional features you get from the Start Pro Plan that are not offered in the lower-tier Thinkific plans:

• 10 Spaces per community (upgraded from 5 in the Basic)
• Access to Course Administrator Accounts
• Advanced website code editing
• Assignments
• Add on packages and bundles
• Live lessons
• Premium course-building options

Grow Plan

The Thinkific Grow plan, also the most popular plan, costs $199/month ($159/month annually). However, you save $600 with the annual plan, so it might be worth the cost to pay it in full. 

While this is a price jump (nearly double that of the previous option), you’re getting access to a lot more, including:

• Removes Thinkific branding
• Access to advanced Thinkific analytics
• 20 spaces per community (upgraded from 10 on the start plan)
• 2 admins (compared to 1 in all previous plans)
• priority email and phone support (previous plans only allowed access to chat and email support)

Expand Plan

The Expand plan starts at $499/month ($374 per month when paid in full for the year). 

You get access to unlimited “spaces per community,” which means virtual rooms. You’re also granted 15-course administrator accounts and 10 communities. However, this is very expensive and is most suitable for those who already have a large student/client base.

Thinkific Plus Plan

This plan offers unlimited access to EVERYTHING. Unfortunately, I’m not entirely sure how much this plan is as it mentions you have to “contact us” to discover what the pricing actually entails. 

The advantage of this plan is you get access to almost unlimited everything.

However, the pricing is unclear because it’s evaluated on a case-by-case basis. 

UX, Course Design, and General Features

There are some general advantages that Thinkific offers that other course creation platforms do not offer.

Renewal Pricing – I’ve personally used Teachable, Skool, and Kartra, and neither of them allows this feature.

Landing Page Builder – Compared to Teachable’s landing page builder (which sucks, by the way), I found the Thinkific platform is MUCH easier to use with better features. 

Drag-and-Drop Course Builder – extremely user-friendly, allowing course creators to easily build out course content for their student base. 

Popularity of Thinkific Course Creator Platform

Yes, compared to Teachable, Thinkific isn’t nearly as big. According to Ahrefs, Thinkific receives roughly 25,000 searches per month, compared to Teachable, which receives an estimated 40,000 searches per month.  However, popularity isn’t everything in terms of quality. Just because they’re bigger doesn’t necessarily mean they are better.

On the contrary, Udemy blew these two out of the park. At the time this article was published, Udemy received an estimated 431,000 searches per month. 

Final Thoughts on Thinkific Pricing Plans

There are a variety of options if you’re considering using Thinkific. From their top premier plans down to the free plans, there are options available to budgets of all shapes and sizes. 

Regardless of which pricing tier you opt for, I think Thinkific is at least worth trying out.

After all, you can test it out without spending any money.

I’ve personally tested it out along with various other online course creation platforms, including Teachable, Kajabi, Kartra, and Skool, and I’m pretty impressed with Thinkific.

While Thinkific isn’t as popular as Teachable, it has a better user interface and looks more professional.

At the end of the day, you have to choose what platform works best for your brand and community. 

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